was full of fleecy cumulus clouds, some of which enclosed large patches
of blue sky that looked like tranquil polar seas surrounded by hummocks
of frozen snow. Now and again a small cloud, at a lower elevation than
the rest, would sail gaily across these blue pools, and then be lost to
view against the white clouds on the other side. Larks and chaffinches
were everywhere in full song, and the sunshine had brought the
honey-bees to the palm-willows which, during the last ten days, had
changed their flower-buds from silver to gold. As Mary approached the
farm she saw the first swallows of the season darting in tremulous
flight across the meadows, and their presence cheered her. They had come
back to the farm, like herself, after a period of absence, and a feeling
of comradeship with them penetrated to her heart.

She needed all the cheering that the sights and sounds of nature could
give her. As she climbed the hill-side and saw the seventeenth-century
farm-house, with its mullioned windows and hood-mouldings, her heart
sank within her. The cruel memory of the morning when she had last left
it came back to her mind, and the hard look of Learoyd, as he disclosed
his purpose to her, made her flinch. She closed her eyes for a moment,
as though to shut out the past, and then braced herself for the coming
interview. Arrived at the front door, which opened directly into the
kitchen, she paused for a moment to summon up her courage, then knocked,
and, without waiting, lifted the latch. Learoyd, still too weak to
attend to farm duties, was seated in the arm-chair by the fire; in his
hands was the family Bible, but he was not reading. Mary was shocked at
the change which fifteen years had wrought in him. He was not more than
sixty, but he looked at least ten years older, and in his eyes there was
the look of a hunted animal. The sullen pride, which was the habitual
expression of his face in the old days, had given way to a look of
morbid irritability. The farmer looked up from his book as she entered,